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  Frana (landslides) are common all over any Mountainous regions of Italy. Here in Northern tuscany we get our fair share with most of the small mountain villlages around here being affected. We had two large ones last year....one running through our village and the other taking out half the road down the mountain......which still over a year ago has not been fixed and has resulted in the road being left slightly less tahn 2 meters wide at one point; which means any trucks have to take a 13 Km detour in order to get to the village...not popular.... The biggest problem is that most Commumes cannot afford to repair these roads so the infastructure never gets fully back to normal......Thanks Mr B    for taking away the singular most important revenue stream to our Commumes...ICI.

The recent disaster in Messina was exactly because of this. Even though Bertolaso, the head of the �������� Protezione Civile, has been complaining about this for a long time little is being done. And Gromit is right - most towns, especially in Southern Italy, are strapped for cash. Modica, close to us avoided bankruptcy by selling some of their buildings. While, the main road in Modica used to be a river bed (which would place it at serious risk!) the river was diverted in the 1920s when (it seems) they still had cash to do such things!

Well as a non - resident I do pay ICI so I'm pretty much disgusted at the state of our road.Its probably only going to take one more winter like last year and it will be impassable. 5 years back it was perfectly ok.  Personally I'd gladly pay up my 150 euros each year if the comune would carry out any sort of repair. They do seem pretty good at sending out teams of men to strim the verges in the summer - our friends lost their phone and interenet last summer when the fire they lit set fire to a telegraph pole! I think there needs to be more joined up thinking in these comunes. I'm sure some people do work hard and not cluster around the coffee machine for endless chats and coffee - that must just be when I come in? Perhaps if the receptionist was a bit more interested in helping with the query in hand rather than trying  to sell me her house I might get somewhere ! I think I posted here a few years back on farming methods and got told off for offending ��������s!! I expect ��������s might feel even more offended to find their house buried under a landslide! Anyway both farming and building methods need a total overhaul to prevent these tragedies. And comunes need a good kick up the a..e!!

 Going back to my previous post we have just had a few guys out on the road with a BobCat clearing debris/leaves from the side of the road and gutters.......looks like no repair this year then; just hope that clearing the gutters will let the water flow off the road into the drains and away.........they are adopting the 'Fingers Crossed' approach as still no money in the pot.....we'll be lucky to get the gritting done at this rate. I'm with myabruzzohome, I'd gladly pay €150+ if it meant that our raods were maintained and repaired.

  As with many things it seems to vary so much between comunes, ours are good for a village of 800 people they employ 7 workers, who do a good job in clearing and maintaining roads, and also with snow forecast clearing that from our white road as well. Whereas the next village along with a larger population seems to employ one old guy and his dog....and the dogs pretty past his prime too! A